


Gone Native

by terrible_titles



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: But it's all very light and quaint and fluff, Domestic, Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Slice of Life, There's a lot of soul searching and philosophical musing on the nature of life and humanity, This is really just a way to get these two in a cottage on the countryside because I'm weak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-12 18:37:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19579945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terrible_titles/pseuds/terrible_titles
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley have spent 6000 years among humans. Now, after the apocalypse never happened, they must confront some uncomfortable insights into their own natures. While having lots of tea and dealing with children trampling through their garden.





	Gone Native

“Do you know what it means to have purpose?” Adam Young asked the angel who moved next door. 

“I do,” Aziraphale answered the not-antichrist. He and the boy were gazing fondly at a demon who was kicking a potted plant quite violently in the garden. 

“Because Mr. Crowley, well, he says that a plant’s purpose is to grow,” Adam mused. “And I guess that one’s not doing it.”

Crowley was now hopping around on one foot after a particularly rough-angled kick seemed to hurt his toe more than the actual pot. 

“A plant’s purpose is whatever Crowley wants it to be at the moment, dear boy,” Aziraphale said, and clasped the young man on the back. “What do you say we go in for some tea and biscuits? I’m sure Crowley will be along shortly.” 

***

A stay in Tadfield had been Crowley’s idea, actually. He remembered Aziraphale’s comment on the warmth and love he felt emanating from the tiny village where an antichrist was brought up very normally with no help from incompetent demons and/or angels. 

And Aziraphale needed it. He had been very moody after the Apocalypse Attempt One, wandering restlessly around his bookshop, clucking disapprovingly at Crowley’s subtle attempts to add his ostentatious décor, glaring menacingly at the odd customer who accidentally walked in and “only wanted directions, they aren’t going to take your _books_ , Angel, why do you even have a shop?”

Normally, Aziraphale would have started flittering about the cottage as soon as they arrived, commenting on the lovely garden pond, rows of well-loved books, and quaintness of the furniture (Crowley made sure it was exactly the angel’s taste, not a blasphemous throne in sight). But as soon as the two arrived, Aziraphale simply teared up a bit, sniffled, and said that he would like very much to take a walk on his own throughout the village. 

So Crowley had to leave him to that, and set up his plant room just the way he liked it, with a bit of sun and intimidation. 

Aziraphale came back for tea with the antichrist and his friends tagging along. Crowley wasn’t entirely certain when he looked at Adam what the boy remembered, but it was best not to dredge that up and Adam and Aziraphale seemed to have already decided upon a natural sort of first acquaintance thing. 

“And here’s Mr. Crowley,” Aziraphale told the group. “We’ll be renting this cottage for a time. You’re free to come for tea, with your parents’ permission.” 

The girl, Pepper, tipped her nose up at the demon. “Why are you wearing sunglasses?” she asked. “It’s overcast.”

“Buzz off,” Crowley answered, then looked at Aziraphale with what he hoped came across as forced politeness. “You didn’t tell me we were having company,” he said through gritted teeth. 

“Oh, I bumped into these fine children playing in these lovely woods just east of here; we really must take our walks there, dear, you would love the greenery.”

Crowley sneered. 

The children stayed for tea, Aziraphale amusing them all with grandiose stories from history that were never in any of the books. The boys were entertained, but disbelieving. Crowley suspected most of the stories had been exaggerated, but he couldn’t know for sure, having been asleep for much of the history Aziraphale cared about. Only Pepper seemed vehemently open to the idea of lone heroes riding white steeds into battles to preach about the barbarity and waste of war until everyone laid down their weapons and drank tea. Crowley supposed she had a vague feeling that she had done much the same. 

After the children left, Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Feel any better?”

Aziraphale flicked him a nervous smile. “Why, I have no idea what you’re on about with this feeling poorly nonsense. I am just fine, Crowley. More than fine. We’ve averted the apocalypse and this tea was just lovely.” 

“Of course, of course.” Crowley propped one boot on the table. Aziraphale’s nose pinched in annoyance but he didn’t comment. “You don’t normally seek our human companionship, though.” 

There was no point in denying the coincidence of fate, so Aziraphale simply stood to take the tea dishes to the sink, which wasn’t strictly necessary for an angel who could simply miracle dishes clean. “You just like to see how these people are getting on now,” Aziraphale answered finally, realizing at the sink he did not actually know how to wash a dish. 

Crowley watched him, faintly amused.

Aziraphale turned in a huff. The dishes had disappeared from the sink. “Well, why do you wear those sunglasses, Crowley?” he demanded, a bit petulantly, it had to be said. 

Crowley’s mood dropped instantly into annoyance. “Oh, what are you on about now, Angel? Making this about me, are we, because you don’t want to admit to a case of the nerves?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aziraphale snapped back peevishly. “Honestly, to accuse me of something so human as _having nerves_.” He sat back down across from Crowley and eyed him. “When you’re the one who hides underneath those hideous glasses.”

“You wound me, Angel.” Crowley clutched his chest mockingly. 

“Well, I understand as much among the humans, of course, but me? Haven’t we been together long enough you shouldn’t need a bottle of wine to feel you can be yourself with me?”

Crowley sighed heavily, more heavily than was strictly necessary for a demon who didn’t need to breathe, but he always had a flair for the dramatics. “You never cared about any of this Before,” he said. 

“Well, Before was much different than Right Now, you must admit.”

“Not for us.”

“Especially for us.”

“We were just maintaining a way of life.”

“Oh, come now, Crowley. That was hardly a maintenance plan.”

“Did I move you to Tadfield just so we could have a discussion about our relationship?” 

Aziraphale pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes tightly. Crowley looked away. It was too much like seeing the angel in pain.

“No, dear,” Aziraphale relented and walked away from the table. Soon, Crowley could hear noises from the study. Aziraphale unpacking his books slowly, no doubt, savoring each one for its leather bindings and musty odors. 

“No, dear,” Crowley mocked to himself, but it didn’t quite feel okay. 

***

Wensleydale and Brian were taking turns pushing each other on a tire swing that had miraculously appeared in the garden (Crowley would take no credit for it, but he kept catching Aziraphale’s eye hoping the apology was noticed anyway). Pepper was reading an imaginary summons for an emergency witness and Adam was judge, juror, and executioner, as was right and proper. 

Aziraphale brought out lemonade and biscuits which had promptly been devoured to their crumbs on the platter and left abandoned in a nest of weeds Crowley had not yet gotten around to frightening away. 

“Rather interesting game they’re playing, Angel,” Crowley noted when Aziraphale came to sit next to him at the patio table. “Probably shouldn’t have told them so much about the witch hunts.”

“Well, what nonsense they were spouting about it all, as if it were just madness in a loaf of bread,” Aziraphale answered. “Everyone knows it was your lot trying to make a mess out of everyone’s attempts to get back on the right track.”

“Not me, Angel,” Crowley protested. 

“No.” Aziraphale looked sidelong at him. “It never is.” 

“I’ll admit to a bestowing a bit of inspiration with the whole sink a witch test. Thought it was rather a good joke and they’d see the lunacy of it a bit quicker.”

“Humans,” Aziraphale mused, watching the children carefully. 

“What a waste of sentience.” But Crowley found himself watching them too. 

***

“Come on, Mr. Fell!” Wensleydale pulled the angel by the hand. “We need a good side. Pepper’s not good.”

“I resent that!” Pepper declared. “I am perfectly neutral.”

The children had decided Pepper’s defense of the witches was going nowhere. And it was true; Pepper had taken it upon herself to attempt neutrality in the absence of a prosecutor. But the problem, of course, lay in Adam also being quite a neutral judge, his clever face very seriously impassive. Pepper’s neutrality was also less neutrality and more a promise to smite those who would stand against her and her clients. 

“Oy, children, you’ll never get anywhere with him,” Crowley sniffed and gestured. “You think he’ll do any better than the girl there? Aziraphale loves smiting. Smite them for trespassing. Smite them for betrayal. A lot of smiting, he does.”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale frowned, disapproving. “You know I don’t go in for that smiting business.”

Crowley lifted himself out of his chair and passed Wensleydale and Aziraphale, coming into the fray. “You, there, boy,” he said, nodding at Brian. “You keep doing your witchy thing, so long as you don’t hurt anyone. Too badly. Be as witchy as you’d like. And you, judge.” At this, Adam’s careful eyes met Crowley’s with a hint of something serious. “You keep your nose out of other people’s business unless it’s to make things more fun, yeah?”

“He always makes things more fun,” Pepper said, still defending. 

Aziraphale smiled at her with such endearment Crowley rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah, yeah, well, I just don’t see what the point was in all this business to begin with, scapegoating fellow humans when you all knew who was really up to the funny stuff.” Crowley, to his credit, didn’t look down or up, and not just because Aziraphale had moved behind him and would glare all night if he flinched in either direction. “You’ve got to stick to each other’s sides or you never know who’ll be fiddling with your history.” At this, Crowley realized he had more attention than he had bargained for in the proceedings. Even the angel’s gaze behind him, while not quite a glare, was burning into his back. So he cleared his throat and turned around the group with a finger in the air. “Besides, everyone knows witches can’t scream and all you’ve got to do is poke ‘em real hard with something pointy and see what happens.” 

With that, Wensleydale took off after Brian with a stick he’d found and Pepper took off after both of them. Adam stayed to gaze at Crowley curiously for a moment or two, head slightly inclined, Brian’s shrieking laughter in the background as Pepper had caught up with him. 

“Not really a good way to stay on each other’s side, eh, Mr. Crowley?” Adam noted. 

“I think it’s working fine,” Crowley answered, walking back to the patio and studiously ignoring Aziraphale’s still burning gaze. 

***

Aziraphale shut the book with a rather loud clap and put it on his nightstand right as Crowley was preparing himself for a quick two or three-day nap on the couch. 

“Ugh,” he groaned, pinching between his eyebrows. “What is it now, Angel?”

“Must you honestly nap with those glasses, too?” Aziraphale asked. 

“You know how the sun is, always pouring in through the cottage windows like a bright cheery fucker.”

Aziraphale heaved a dramatic sigh that nearly put Crowley to shame and stood up from his armchair, moving to sit next to Crowley’s feet on the couch. Crowley obligingly lifted his ankles, scooted down, and settled them across the angel’s lap. 

“Shall I prepare a cup of tea for this intimate conversation we’re about to have?” Crowley asked, only slightly mocking because tea didn’t sound bad if they were going to have to do this anyway. 

“Oh, really, my dear, we’ve had 6000 years and a near-apocalypse, and you’re still worried about simple conversations.” 

“It’s just you’ve been so testy lately, Angel, and testy conversations never work well in my favor.” 

“I have not been tes—”

“Oh, for Hell’s sake, Aziraphale, there’s only going to be room for one of us in this relationship before long.” 

Aziraphale stopped for a moment, then moved his head up a little in that dignified way of his he did when he was feeling vulnerable. “All right, I admit, the Not Apocalypse may have done something to… well, to my _nerves_ , or the angelic equivalent of them, but I am certain it’s nothing a few decades won’t solve.” 

“What was it like Down There?” Crowley said suddenly, shifting a bit upwards. 

Aziraphale’s brow scrunched and he looked around him for a bit helplessly. The bookcases in his library were stocked, crammed full, just as he liked them, but he seemed to be deriving no comfort from them now. “Well, if you must know, it was quite horrible.” 

“Wait, but they didn’t hurt you, you said?”

“They couldn’t, dear, but they definitely wanted to.”

Crowley opened his mouth for a moment before managing a soft, “Sorry.”

“Oh no, no, it’s not—I had just—I had never thought about your domain, as it were, Crowley. And those demons, who were supposed to be your friends—or whatever demons are to each other.” Aziraphale hurriedly added the last part at Crowley’s displeased hiss. “I mean, I never thought about where you belonged, and well, love, it was so glum and just horrible—no wonder you go in for the ostentatious décor—and I can’t imagine how it must have been for you over the centuries, to have come from that place and still been—well, very much _you_.” The “you” was so soft, accompanied by a gentle smile that Aziraphale finally gifted to Crowley when he moved his nervous eyes back upon him. “You are a treasure to have been born from such a lonely world.” 

“Angel—” Crowley tried, but his throat tightened around the word and he looked away. Because he was imagining his own trip back up to Heaven, a place which had forsaken him, a place he never thought he’d see again. And all the shining, lovely thoughts had faded away with a column of fire meant for a soft, somewhat gluttonous angel who looked so fondly upon the things that he loved and might never have smiled again had they not figured out the prophecy. 

Aziraphale leaned forward and grasped Crowley’s hand on his lap. “I know.” 

The world blurred beneath his glasses. “It took a lot not to burn them all where they stood,” Crowley hissed. 

“You showed much restraint,” Aziraphale agreed obligingly.

“You could have—”

“But I didn’t, nor did you.” 

And they sat with that in silence for quite some time, Crowley’s nap and Aziraphale’s book long forgotten. 

***

To live in a world without Aziraphale would be to live in a world without air or alcohol, Crowley thought. Technically possible, but not advisable. 

He took the red wine to his lips and watched Aziraphale point out some worm or such creature to the children in the garden. He watched very hard. The angel was in an ill-advised sweater vest with the sleeves of his shirt very firmly rolled down despite the warmth of the day. The children were in their assorted mud-bearing clothes, a bit too haphazard to have fully been assembled by watchful guardians. Pepper shifted closer to Aziraphale’s side, holding out a hand to bear the green crawling thing he handed to her. He was murmuring some life lesson or what not, something thin and airy, likely, to bestow upon his constituents like a politician looking for votes. 

Except that was an unfair characterization of the angel, and Crowley knew it, and he drank bitterly to forget the real one (which was that he could not live without him, he couldn’t think of one singular thing he needed more than the angel, not even air, oh Satan why didn’t demons need air)? 

“Bobbit,” Aziraphale declared, joining Crowley. 

“Bobbit?” Crowley sneered. 

“They named the worm.” 

“I’d have died for you.” 

Aziraphale looked over at Crowley for several long moments. “I know,” he said finally. 

“You were a shit angel, just saying.” 

“Dear, are you intoxicated? And I still am an angel.” 

Crowley shook his head. “No, am not. And I’m not a demon, you’re not an angel. Look at you, playing with those children like you’re a—”

“Don’t say it.” 

“Do you not love them?”

“Well, of course I do. But that does not mean I can be one of them. We are different creatures. We assert a different purpose in this wor—” Aziraphale stopped short. He looked around, lost, and Crowley couldn’t help the satisfied smile that wormed its way over his lips. 

“Exactly.” Then, “Oy! Children! Off the plants!” 

***

Pepper came over to ask for help with her economics project. (“None of this makes any sense, Crowley, why is the point to gather more resources than one uses?” and Crowley finds himself explaining greed to a girl and an angel who always takes the last bite of dessert.) Wensleydale asked for aid with a literature analysis. (“Your department, Angel, why do I give a fuck about idiots waiting for a guy who never shows up?") Brian needed help with mathematics, and neither of them were very good with that. (“Mathematics is God’s language,” Aziraphale explains. “Oh, so that’s why nobody can understand it,” Crowley says.)

Adam didn’t need help with anything, but he came for dinner occasionally, and listened to Crowley and Aziraphale argue over semantics and philosophies with the ear of a child haunted by a desire for knowledge. 

“You two have known each other for a while,” Adam said one night. “Don’t your arguments ever get old?”

“New arguments every day,” Crowley answered. “Like the one about why we allow obnoxious children to interrupt our dinners.” 

Aziraphale made a show of taking up the dinner plates, but they disappeared from the sink. Can’t teach an old angel new tricks. Crowley was sure Adam noticed, but the boy didn’t comment. 

“New angles every day,” Aziraphale corrected him. “We are always evolving. Always faced with something new and surprising, like children at our dinner table asking insightful questions.” 

“I wonder, though,” Adam pointed out as Aziraphale placed a small slice of tart in front of him, “what it would be like, to be with someone forever.” 

Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged looks. 

“Why are you asking, boy?” Crowley demanded, crossing his arms. “Got someone in mind for that gig?”

“Besides,” Aziraphale said pleasantly, “forever isn’t really a concept you mort—”

Crowley stamped on the angel’s foot quite openly. Adam didn’t comment on that either. 

“Well, you might as well know that it’s Pepper,” Adam said, taking a bite of pear from the top of the tart. “I suspect you already do.” He said it flippantly, though, as if it weren’t really his point at all. It was quite true, however; they had all noticed. Pepper, most of all. 

“I think that Pepper will be a delightful partner for you to argue with, Adam,” Aziraphale said cheerfully as he sat down with his own tart. “You are both immensely clever and passionate creatures. But I find that forever, as a concept, is its own punishment. You must simply argue with what you have, while you have it, and you may yet part ways before forever comes, or you may not, but you will be made better people for it, at least, and isn’t that worth an awful lot?”

Adam chewed on that answer, and a healthy piece of dessert, for several moments. “You must be ancient to be so wise, Mr. Fell,” he said carefully. 

“Ancient, indeed,” Crowley snorted. 

***

Pepper always glued herself to the angel’s side, but when it came down to it, Crowley was certain that she was far too tempted by him, and so he tried to stay away from her as much as possible.

That came to an end one Saturday morning while Crowley was mocking the new flowers he had grown in the garden. Aziraphale was still inside, reading a giant tome he had recently been delivered (by some very confused courier who had no idea how he’d ended up in England while on his way to Boston). Pepper ventured through the garden gate and watched Crowley sullenly bury a trembling plant in the ground, pot and all, in front of the others. 

“Aren’t you supposed to leave the leaves up?” she asked. 

“Shows what you lot know about gardening,” Crowley snapped back, placing the shovel against the fence and turning to the girl. “What do you want? Scram.” 

Pepper was relatively immune to most forms of bile and Crowley was, oddly, no exception. “I want to know why you wear the glasses,” she said. “Is it to hide?” 

Her voice was small, or Crowley would have snapped again. Instead, he simply pulled them off. 

“Because I’ve got something to hide,” he said, his voice a low hiss, blinking his yellow-slit eyes at her. “You don’t, Pepper. Go find Adam. It’s not going to hurt you any more to find him than to not.” 

***

Sometimes, Crowley thinks about the other dimensions that spiraled off from the apocalypse. He thinks about Aziraphale never finding a way back to Earth. He thinks about Aziraphale letting him give up there, when Satan was cracking their world. He thinks about Aziraphale piercing him through with that fiery sword of righteousness and retribution, all pain and anger. He thinks about Aziraphale burning up in the Hellfire, closing his eyes and letting the cries consume him. He thinks about his own body shredded to pieces in the holy water, finally snuffed from its long existence. 

Aziraphale will sometimes consent to sleeping with him at night, though he still dislikes the idea of indulging in sloth. Usually, he simply sits up in bed to read while allowing Crowley to sprawl out on top of him, but occasionally he’ll switch off the lamp and allow his breathing to even out and drift into a sleep as well. 

Crowley didn’t like it the first time he woke to find Aziraphale sleeping. He didn’t realize what it was, at first. It was like a dead body, lax and limp. Aziraphale teased him about it afterwards. “How can you sleep so much and not know what it looks like?”

“Because I sleep so much, obviously,” Crowley answered peevishly. 

“Oh, darling, I didn’t mean to frighten you.” 

“I wasn’t frightened.” 

Aziraphale was torn between amusement and sympathy. He was never really empathetic, though. Not about death. And while Aziraphale may not be the most understanding of divine beings, he was gentle, so Crowley could only assume death was not a thing for angels to be frightened of. 

Crowley could have understood that once. 

“I suppose I will die one day,” Brian told him affably as he watched Crowley rip a plant’s leaves off, one by one. 

“Suppose you will,” Crowley agreed. 

“I don’t think it’s awfully fair, do you?”

Crowley turned then and watched the boy’s face for a moment. “Bit young to be thinking about death, aren’t you?”

Brian shrugged, coming into the garden without waiting for more of an invitation. “Just that my hamster Pig died and I’ve been thinking about it, thinking about how he won’t run around messing in mum’s house shoes or eating lettuce. That was his favorite, you know. Lettuce. But then you can’t eat lettuce, I suppose, when you’re gone. What do you think you eat when you’re gone, Mr. Crowley?”

Ash, maybe, for him. Maybe Heaven would have a sushi bar for Aziraphale, with any luck. 

“I think naming your hamster Pig was kind of weird,” Crowley said instead. 

“Yeah,” Brian sighed, jamming his hands in his pockets. “My mum said I could get another. And that Pig was just very old. But Adam says you’re very old, older than my gram, even, and you’re not dead yet.” 

Crowley snorted. “Listen, thanks for that, kid.” 

“You ever think of death, Mr. Crowley?”

Aziraphale popped out on the porch and spotted them, waved a bit before magicking up a pot of tea for the table when Brian wasn’t looking. 

“A bit, yeah,” Crowley answered. 

***

The cottage was a good idea. Tadfield was even an okay idea, Crowley had to admit, based on Aziraphale’s lightening mood. He supposed the angel was right, and that time would heal angelic nerves, but it also made him different. Just a little. Like a bent shard of light, not quite stooped, but angled differently, shining on spots and corners you wouldn’t normally see.  
“You don’t seem to mind the pointlessness of it all, anymore,” Crowley commented. 

“Why would I? It’s an awfully nice retirement, isn’t it?”

“Is that what you call this? Retirement?”

“That, or an extended sabbatical. You know, Crowley, it seems we’ve swapped positions, nearly. I feel… content here, much happier, but you seem to just be getting more tense.”

They laid on the bed, morning rays shining through the thin curtains, but it wasn’t as if that were necessarily a sign they needed to get up anytime soon. 

Crowley leaned up. “You haven’t asked me about my glasses lately.” 

Aziraphale studied him. “Why do you still wear your glasses with me?” he asked softly. 

“Because I’m scared.” 

“Oh.” Aziraphale lifted a hand to Crowley’s cheek and Crowley flinched. “Dear. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. There is quite a lot to take in here, after everything, isn’t there? And I forget. You know me, so absent-minded. But I’ll protect you. You won’t go back there. And if they try, I’ll come for you. Don’t you know that? I will.” 

“You stupid angel,” Crowley hissed, closing his eyes against the hand at his cheek. “You think it’s going back to Hell I’m worried about? It’s you, and those—those creatures Up There that want you to burn. Angel, don’t you understand the danger you’re in? You won’t just die and go to Heaven. Hellfire will eat your soul. And you, being so fucking pure about everything, you’d simply turn to ash. You’d be gone. And not just gone, like Brian’s stupid hamster, but Gone, like erased from the very fabric of the universe.” 

Something in Aziraphale’s eyes shone. Maybe it was a hint of fear at Crowley’s revelation. He hoped it was. But Aziraphale’s hand never left his cheek, never even trembled. 

“And if you think for one second that I could live without you here—” Crowley choked on the word, coughed once, and then removed his glasses with a sigh because it was easier than speaking. Aziraphale immediately kissed him, as if he were attempting to train Crowley to a Pavlovian response.

“The children would have none of it,” Aziraphale agreed. 

“You have become disturbingly like a human,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale didn’t even wince, or at least didn’t wince too much. 

“Well, it seems it’s much too easy to fall into their quaint little habits here. Aren’t their lives so simple and nice?”

“Simple and nice, until one wrong cell shuts down their body, or one medium-sized objects knocks them down forever. Listen, Aziraphale, don’t _fucking_ die.” 

***

Aziraphale couldn’t promise that, of course. And he wouldn’t. Not just because he was a holy angel, but because Aziraphale would not give Crowley false hope. He understood the dilemma he was in just as much as the demon did, but he felt very adamant about maintaining a certain air of dignity as he went through the days at the Tadfield cottage, helping the children through their young lives, the bookshop and flat in London all but forgotten (but it would be there waiting, he was sure Crowley would take care of that).

“My parents want me to study accounting,” Wensleydale told the angel and demon over a delightful Bakewell tart. “And then they want me to apply to the firm my dad works for—”

“What a load of crap,” Crowley interrupted, lounging precariously in the lawn chair. 

“Crow—”

“No, Angel. It is. What do you think it matters if you account for some numbers, really? What do you think it matters if you don’t? Nothing. You don’t matter either way.” 

“Really, Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed. 

Crowley sat up a bit now, shoving his glasses on tighter against his face, leaning towards the small boy who had gone very, very mute. “And you may think that’s stupid, or sad, or whatever, but it’s not. You’ve got no purpose other than to live. You can either be a piece of someone else’s game or you can go off and make up some rules and play your own.” 

Pepper, Crowley saw out of the corner of his eye, had leaned over to hold Adam’s hand tightly. Brian shifted closer to the angel, eye wide. 

“What do you want a purpose for, anyhow?” Crowley said bitterly, leaning back again. “It’s not all it’s cut out to be.” 

***

“You know, I never doubted that you loved me.” Aziraphale held the feather pen he had been writing with to his lips thoughtfully. “It’s a bit strange, isn’t it? Not to doubt a demon? I’ve doubted so many things, but never that. Never you.” 

Crowley watched him carefully beneath his shades. “There’s no call for meanness, Angel,” he said slowly. 

Aziraphale smiled and put his pen down, turning to face Crowley now with typical nervous hand-wringing. “You never said it, though. You just did. You do. You always have.” 

“Well.” Crowley felt his cheeks tinge pink and looked at the ceiling, breathing out through his nose forcefully. “Hard not to love an angel, isn’t that what your lot is designed for?”

“I rather thought it was you who liked to tempt others in that way.”

“But love, that’s different.” 

“Yes, well. Maybe you’re a bit more human, too.” 

Crowley groaned and rubbed his eyes underneath the glasses. “Snake, Angel. Crawling, belly-dragging, bottom-dweller—”

Aziraphale had moved across the room rather more lightly than Crowley expected and now he bent to kiss him on the cheek, then the jaw. “And what a lovely snake. Come to bed.” 

Crowley hissed and did. 

***

Crowley eventually did come in for tea and biscuits, still hobbling a bit after that kick, and found Aziraphale and Adam engaged in a rather touching yet intense discussion about what it meant to be nothing at all. 

“A bit scary,” Adam mumbled around a bite of lemon treat. “Like, what if Pepper and I just up and decided to rule the world?”

Crowley eyed the boy suspiciously, but Aziraphale answered mildly, “Well, I suppose you might run into a bit of trouble along the way, but it’s always a possibility.” 

“Because she’d do a good job, I think. She’s kind, even if she’s a bit rough, you know.”

Aziraphale smiled warmly. “I do know.” 

“Sometimes I feel that I was meant to do something like that… have a world… own it.” Adam paused thoughtfully, then shook his head. “But that’s rather a lot of work, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale agreed. 

“Perhaps Pepper and I will just see the world instead. Just see it, not own it. Go find some pyramids or chase some dolphins. Anything we’d like. There’s no point in not, is there?”

And that’s precisely what they did, eventually. They made a whole lot of stories and then came back to Tadfield with a child who played in the angel and demon’s garden too while they recounted their latest adventures. (Pepper squared off with a pirate once, she insisted; Adam was fairly sure it was just a drunk waterbike thief.)

Wensleydale had a brief mildly successful career as a death metal vocalist in Iceland before coming back to England to settle down as a history teacher, marrying a lovely music teacher with whom he raised many dogs. Brian found satisfaction in politics. There was not a lot of math in politics.

The not-antichrist, his friends, and his children died, eventually. Humans did such things, after all. The angel and demon did not, but they mourned the humans and the dogs and the flowers. They mourned the leaves when they fell each autumn. 

And Aziraphale’s smile lit up every time the trees bloomed again, like it was a precious thing.

Crowley, for his part, consented to take off the glasses and take in the color just a little bit longer each spring.


End file.
